Pattern miner: Add hide-older-comments tip to daily-test-improver and repo-maintainer

[github-actions]

Recurring pattern mined

add-comment with target: "*" and hide-older-comments: true — used to post an iterative progress/status comment on a tracked issue or pull request while minimizing (hiding) the previous status comment posted by the same workflow, so repeated runs don't leave a growing thread of stale updates.

Evidence (upstream: githubnext/agentics, path workflows/)

This exact add-comment shape (max, target: "*", hide-older-comments: true) appears in five upstream workflows:

• workflows/perf-improver.md (lines 48-52)
• workflows/test-improver.md (lines 47-52)
• workflows/efficiency-improver.md (lines 41-46)
• workflows/repo-assist.md (lines 161-164)
• workflows/contribution-check.md (lines 27-37)

It is also documented as a first-class add-comment option in github/gh-aw at .github/aw/safe-outputs-content.md:

hide-older-comments: true # Optional: minimize previous comments from same workflow ... "Hide Older Comments: Set hide-older-comments: true to minimize previous comments from the same workflow before posting new ones. Useful for status updates."

Five upstream workflows using the identical configuration plus explicit upstream documentation describing it as a recommended option for status updates satisfies the "recurring pattern" bar (>= two upstream workflows, or one plus explicit documentation).

Why the existing library didn't cover it

patterns/archetypes/daily-test-improver.json and patterns/archetypes/repo-maintainer.json are the closest matches to the five upstream workflows above (they are daily/scheduled improver-style workflows that open pull requests and post status). Neither archetype's tips, nor any other archetype's tips, nor patterns/manifest.json, mention hide-older-comments or the target: "*" + comment-hiding combination anywhere in the committed library (grep -r "hide-older" patterns/ returns no matches before this change).

What changed in patterns/

• patterns/archetypes/daily-test-improver.json: appended one tip recommending add-comment with target: "*" and hide-older-comments: true for running progress updates.
• patterns/archetypes/repo-maintainer.json: appended one tip recommending the same configuration for status updates on tracked issues/PRs.

No other fields (success_rate, count, top_repos, metadata, anti_patterns, trigger_combos, research_findings, degraded_workflows, recommended_triggers, recommended_safe_outputs, recommended_tools) were touched. No new archetype was added, and patterns/manifest.json / patterns/workflow-generation.json were left unmodified since this is a tip-only refinement.

Validation

• npm test: 327 tests passed across 19 test files (0 failures).
• npm run build: production build completed successfully (✓ built in 157ms).

Candidates deliberately left out

• New deployment_status archetype — documented extensively in github/gh-aw docs (triggers.md, deployment-status.md, workflow-patterns.md), but zero upstream workflow files in either mined repo actually use the deployment_status trigger. Only one upstream workflow example is a hard requirement per the mining rules, and there are zero, so this was dropped.
• Discussion-mining-to-issues archetype (discussion-task-miner.md) — only one upstream workflow demonstrates scanning discussions to create issues; no second upstream workflow or explicit "recommended pattern" documentation corroborates it as a distinct archetype, so it was left out per the two-workflow (or documented) requirement.
• upload-asset + create-discussion chart-report tip — already effectively covered by the existing community-digest archetype and the charts entry in patterns/workflow-generation.json extras, so no further change was made.
• MAX_OPEN_PRS pre-activation gh pr count check — already covered by the existing "Add a pre-activation step that skips scheduled runs once too many open PRs share your title prefix" tip present in code-improvement, documentation-updater, performance-nut, and daily-test-improver.

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[github-actions]

No blocking issues found (reviewer kind: ponytail, auto-dispatched — this PR only edits tips string arrays in two patterns/archetypes/*.json files, closest to content/copy changes rather than TS/JS code).

Both additions are valid JSON, follow the existing tip phrasing/tone conventions in each file, and accurately describe the add-comment + target: "*" + hide-older-comments: true pattern per the PR's cited upstream evidence. No correctness, security, or build/test risk.

Warning

Firewall blocked 1 domain

The following domain was blocked by the firewall during workflow execution:

• github.com

To allow these domains, add them to the network.allowed list in your workflow frontmatter:

network:
  allowed:
    - defaults
    - "github.com"

See Network Configuration for more information.

Generated by Specialist PR Review for #281 · copilot · auto · 13.6 AIC · ⌖ 5.41 AIC · ⊞ 7.2K